College and Research Libraries By LEROY CHARLES MERRITT A Footnote on the Need for Local Subject Cataloging Dr. il1 erritt is professor of librarians hip, University of California. T HE RESEARCH which resulted in the publication of The Use of the Subject Catalog in the University of California Library 1 made possible the gathering of a small additional amount of data, the report- ing of which did not seem relevant to the main subject catalog inquiry. The hypothe- sis on which those data are based, however, is interesting and relevant to the problem of subject cataloging in libraries generally, and is presented here for that reason. In order to provide the necesary background for the reader who may not have the basic document at hand, the following paragraphs are quoted from the summary: It was revealed that the use of books pro- gressively diminishes as they become older, and that somewhat more recent books are chosen from the subject catalog than are located in the author catalog. When a con- venient age limit of twenty years is set, it is found that 49.6 per cent of all loans through the subject catalog are not more than twenty years old. It was shown further that 71 per cent of books currently being cataloged are not more than twenty years old. When these two facts are relat"ed, it is possible to anticipate a reduction of 29 per cent in the amount of s"Qbject cataloging by postulating a policy of providing subject display only for books less than twenty-one years old. Such a policy would, over a period of years, result in a reduction in subject coverage of only IS per cent based on books loaned through use of the subject catalog. That is, users of the 1 Merritt, LeRoy 'Charles. Th e Use o[ the Subject Catalog in the University of California L~brary. (Uni- versity of California Publications in Librarianship, v. I, No. r.) Berkeley, University of California Press, 1951. library would borrow IS per cent fewer books through use of the subject catalog than they now do. The major discrepancy between books cata- loged and books loaned was discovered among foreign language material. Although so per cent of all titles currently being cataloged are in foreign languages, only 6.2 per cent of all books loaned through the subject catalog were written in foreign languages. Thus the subject-cataloging load could be reduced by so per cent while reducing the efficiency of the subject catalog by only 6.2 per cent, on a purely quantitative basis. To this so per cent reduction in subject- catalog.ing load on foreign material it is pos- sible to add a 29 per cent reduction of the remaining half of books in English if subject cataloging is eliminated for books more than twenty years old, resulting in a total reduction in subject-cataloging load of 64.s per cent. Concomitant reduction in the amount of suh- j ect display affected by use of the subject catalog would be 21.2 per cent. Phrased dif- ferently, and in rounder numbers, if subject cataloging were to · be dropped for all foreign books and for all English books more than twenty years old, subject-cataloging load would be reduced immediately by 6s per cent. The efficiency of the subject catalog in terms of books circulated with its help would pro- gressively decline to a level not lower than 8o per cent of its present effectiveness. The Harper Method. In modern um- versity libraries the process of subject cata- loging is fully integrated with the process of classification. Since the same thought proc- esses are involved in assigning a subject heading as are involved in choosing a proper classification number, the two functions are desirably performed at the same time. It f.ollows then that substantial savings cannot be made by eliminating only 232 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES one of the two processes; classification must be modified as well if projected savings in subject cataloging are to be significant and important. A solution has been offered by Professor Lawrence A. Harper of the University of California Department of History which is at once intriguing and challenging. If it could be placed into effect, a similar though differently distributed reduction in subject cataloging would result in a similar reduc- tion in subject catalog efficiency of only twenty per cent. Professor Harper suggests the possibilrty that full and complete subject catalog dis- play is necessary only for those books for which Library of Congress cards are avail- able, that most of the books approached through the subject catalog are those books which are acquired and cataloged by the Library of Congress. Proceeding on this assumption, he suggests (I) that full sub- ject display be given only to those books for which LC cards are available, ( 2) that all other books be given descriptive catalog- ing only and be shelved in order of receipt without classification, and (3) that as LC cards become available for books handled as in ( 2), the books be withdrawn from their special location· and be given full sub- ject cataloging and classification. In connection with the subject catalog inquiry, it was possible to test this sugges- tion by a special analysis of a limited subject-catalog-derived sample which con- tained call c~rds representing I 784 charges. By checking each of these books with the official shelf-list, it was found that I2I I, or 68 per cent, had been cataloged on Li- brary of Congress cards at the time the books were acquired. Since it sometimes occurs that LC cards are printed after the University of California Library has done its own cataloging, the remaining 573 cards produced locally were checked with the Library of Congress Depository Cata- JULY, 1952 log, which is a complete catalog ~f all cards ever printed by the Library of Con- gress. LC cards were found there for an additional 22 5 books, making a total of I436 books for which LC cards were avail- able at the time the books were used. Thus, had the Harper method been fol- lowed in its entirety during the last so years, the ·subject catalog would be 8o per cent as effective in locating desired material by subject as it is now. These data are recapitulated in Table r. Table I Incidence of Library of Congress Cards in the Cataloging of 1784 Books Loaned Through the Subject Catalog Number Per Cent Original Cataloging on LC Cards 121 I 67.9 Subsequent Publication of LC Cards 225 12.6 Total LC Cards Available at Time Books Were Used 1436 80.5 Total Loans Derived from Subject Catalog 1784 100.0 If the library were to adopt the Harper method, it would no longer be necessary to do any original subject cataloging or classi- fication; all could be done with the assistance of the subject headings and classi- fication numbers already printed on , the Library of Congress cards. For the last three years Library of Congress cards have been available for approximately fifty per cent of the titles cataloged by the University of California Library. Reduction in sub- ject cataloging and classification load would thus amount to at least this fifty per cent, in terms of titles cataloged, and would in fact amount to more than that because the reduction would occur for the more diffi- cult fifty per cent for which LC cards are not available. Accurate figures of this (Continued on page 241) 233 Germaniae historica. Marburg/Lahn, Simons Verlag, 1951. 2 pts. in I vol. Index to New Z ealand Periodicals and Current National Bibliography of New Zea- land: Books and Pamphlets Published in 1950, ed. by A. L. Olsson. Wellington, N. Z., Library Association, I95I- Contents 1950: Sec. I, p. 1-124, Index (to 58 periodicals); Sec.2, p. I25-I42, Current national bibliography. I nt,ernational Political Science Abstracts. Documentation politique internatiunale. Ox- ford, I95I- v.I- J ansonius, Herman. Groot nederlands- engels woordenboek voor studie en practijk. Leiden, N ederlandsche uitgeversmaatschappij N. U., I950- Deel I, A-Moesson. 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( Bibliotheque de la faculte de philosophie et lettres de namur. Fasc. 4, 5, I2) Local Subject Cataloging (Continued from page 233) saving are not at hand, but it is not un- reasonable to estimate the total saving at the same 6 5 per cent found to obtain were subject cataloging to be eliminated for for- JULY, 1952 eign books and English books more than twenty years old. This would certainly be true when it is considered that classifi- cation is eliminated as well. 241 '